Delany's Dirt

by Ray Davis

(Published in Ash of Stars, ed. James Sallis, University Press of Mississippi)

I. We Want to Take You, Cholly, When We Go

But it's always intriguing to discover the ways in which desire fuels the
systems of the world.
-- The Mad Man, p. 257

I want to talk about Samuel R. Delany's pornography. I want to talk about it
much as I talk about his other fiction, but I know that this desire won't be
satisfied easily, since its consummation requires an unlikely level of
cooperation from interlocutor or reader. Even in fantasy, I can only go so far
before imagining your objections on the basis of genre -- unless fantasy
becomes so divorced from experience that it goes unsatisfactorily flat, or
unless I imagine a very limited (but so beautifully tailored!) audience of like
minds.

Don't get me wrong; I like talking to an audience of like minds. But I
also want to make some attempt, however misguided or inadequate, to talk to the
rest of you. (Members of the choir may wish to turn to the next section of the
hymnal.[1])

Those who read science fiction: Imagine that I'm writing about Theodore
Sturgeon's work for a group of academics in the late 1950s. Whatever virtues I
point out will be undercut by the perfectly obvious fact that it is
science fiction, and that it is therefore adolescent wish-fulfillment:
"Telepathy, mutants; I just don't read that stuff." Indeed, the
science-fictional or fantastic content is so embarrassingly obvious that I
might be tempted to de-emphasize it in Sturgeon's defense, to, in effect, admit
that content to be a flaw in itself, and therefore admit that Sturgeon can only
be understood as a failed artist.

My point is that genre-specific content is not a sign of weakness. Only a sign
of genre. And I don't think it's particularly difficult to assimilate --
rather than judge -- those signs which mark a work as genre. Genres may
assume reading protocols which are not those of a particular ideal of
literature. But a given piece of fiction can fit more than one set of
protocols, and the set of "literary" protocols is notable for its flexibility.
True, a fan of a genre, who responds positively to genre-specific content for
its own sake, might appreciate work within the genre more quickly (and feel
more betrayed when genre conventions are sabotaged). But fannishness is not
required. Sufficient to begin with is a willingness to let down one's guard,
to admit that a book devoted to telepathy and mutants can tell us things a
mainstream book can't.

So can a book devoted to careful descriptions of sexual acts, although porn is
especially subject to dismissal-by-genre-content. One rarely hears biographies
turned away with "I prefer having a life to reading about one." Few people
rush to assure one that they're "not an elf" or "not a detective" or "not a
serial killer" when the title of a fantasy or a mystery or a thriller arises in
conversation. John Le Carré's target audience may be fellow spies, but
readers who aren't spies seem willing to apply the experiences of a spy's life
to their own. Why is it so difficult to play the same game of
similarity-through-difference with sexual material?

That's a rhetorical question, since I'm not willing to take the time to answer
it adequately. I can answer it rhetorically, however: We do play this
game, but under carefully circumscribed rules. Perforce, we must pretend to
find ourselves in the mainstream lies of bestselling novels, Hollywood films,
and advertising, although even the most vanilla encounter has infinitely more
in common with the porn of Pat Califia and Marco Vassi than with the Sports
Illustrated swimsuit issue. Society expends a great deal of energy on not
very convincing simulacra to keep us from thinking or talking about the reality
of sex.

The only way to approach that reality is through sexually explicit material --
emphasis on "explicit"; I'm not talking Playboy here. And masturbation
is not the only possible approach to such material.

Delany hardly clarifies that point by his whimsical citation of Auden's
"pornography is that which gives me an erection"[2] -- which
is about as useful as defining science fiction by sense of wonder. For all
practical purposes, porn is defined by its focus on sex. Tumescence and
lubrication may help the writer maintain that focus, but what the reader
does with that focus is up to the reader.

True, an aphrodisiac effect is as worthy an artistic goal as any other
physiological effect; true, porn's greatest benefits may be to confirm,
comfort, and trouble those with matching proclivities. When porn isn't
aphrodisiac? Then it can still offer the benefits of other forms of fiction:
analysis of the workings of the world; disabusal of solipsism; laughter,
horror, surprise; those excessive intrinsic pleasures which we call
aesthetic.... You probably have your own ideas of what fiction is good for,
and, when the pornographer fetishizes literature as well as more traditionally
sexual pursuits, chances are you'll find those virtues in porn.

Along with porn's own peculiar, problematic virtues: Desire, like art, is
privileged to cut across (although not erase!) those wavering boundaries which
define the power systems of the world. As such, it can, like art, be used to
shore up those systems. Or, as such, its expression can be a courageous,
humanizing reminder of the limits of those systems. Porn, as the art which
most directly expresses desire, thus has a great deal of power at its disposal
-- which may be why it's so circumscribed.

By any reasonable standard, these are important (and courageous) books: three
novels in three very different modes by Samuel R. Delany from three periods of
his career.

Equinox, an archly artificial fantasy, was Delany's last novel of the 1960s, finished in 1968, a year after Nova

Hogg, a violent roman noir, was finished in 1973, around the same time as Dhalgren

The Mad Man, a realistic novel about urban life and academia, with elements of romance and murder mystery, was finished in 1995

In fact, the three are so different in style and mood that one might wonder why
they should be treated together at all. Their most clearly shared elements --
besides the "explicit sex" which establishes their genre -- are abiding
interests in racial epithets and the consumption of bodily products. Which, it
turns out, is surprisingly little to have in common, though enough to keep
all three out of public sight, to put off the idly curious, and to distract
most critics from other aspects.

What can I say? "After a while, you don't hardly notice the smell." For me,
having read all three books, those abiding interests have faded from the
primacy of "content" to almost the invisibility of "reading protocol." Which
is probably far from the author's intent -- especially for The Mad Man,
which could truthfully be called a book about the consumption of bodily
products -- but, I think, permissable as a temporary reading strategy, as a
step in appreciating those abiding interests rather than simply being struck by
them. At any rate, it's the position from which I write the remainder of this
essay.

I'm not asking that you change what you find sexually attractive; only that you
experimentally discard the requirement for compatible fantasy when reading
about sex. Remember, it's just a book. And if you do occasionally find
yourself responding -- well, that's educational, too.

I started to say, Tony, please! Spare me! Then I thought: But who
knows when I'll need to know stuff like that.
-- The Mad Man, p. 386